We all know that bullying kills. But now we have some real hard data on exactly how deadly anti-gay harassment really can be, even years after you’ve left high school behind.

According to the study, adults who were harassed as kids are 5.6 times more likely to attempt suicide, 2.6 times more likely to report clinical depression, and 2.5 times as likely to have been diagnosed with an STD.

Of course, this doesn’t exactly mean that bullying = suicide. Plenty of kids make it through the awfulness of high school and into happy adulthood. Support is out there, nobody has to suffer alone in silence, and suicide isn’t a foregone consequence of anti-gay harassment.

But.

When organizations like NOM and individuals like Ruban Diaz endorse messages like “Those who practice such things are worthy to death,” they’re knowingly putting kids at risk.

The study was conduced by the Family Acceptance Project and published in the American School Health Association’s Journal of School Health. And it’s not all bleak news: it’s easy to mitigate the risk by implementing anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies. Policies like the Safe Schools Act, which has been drifting around Congress for years.

We wouldn’t tolerate a school bus driver who’s been empirically proven to be 5.6 times more likely to crash a bus. Why do we tolerate teachers, pastors, and parents who jeopardize kids’ safety through bullying?

What gets swept under the rug is that bullied kids seem to be MORE likely to bully others than those who fly below the radar more. There’s some sort of pecking order involved, which I bet varies from school to school.

I’m no innocent: I got picked on for being poor & having lots of learning problems. And I did my part to spread the hate around to the classmates who “looked funny.”

When a new principal took over, she set zero tolerance policy: after a good number of us had to have our parents come in for meetings, this settled down by November. Not perfect results, but a much calmer environment.

And I still bristle when someone makes fun of me for some things. And I am now unusuallly kind to “funny looking people”!

Oh yeah: I got Karate & Tae Kwan Do lessons for real cheap at the county rec center. Some Y’s have (sliding scale) programs too. (I know that’s not available everywhere though)

There are also lots of so-called “self defense” classes out there geared often geared to women, but the principles are the same & can be taught even to younger folks (of all genders!!)

May 17, 2011 at 8:36 pm · @Reply ·

Habit Rouge

The problem with bullying has to do with tolerance, the kind you can only learn at home at a young age. Until we become a society tolerant and respectful of everyone (and pass that off to the children) this problem ain’t going away.

May 18, 2011 at 9:22 am · @Reply ·

ritu

hey I was very surprised when I read adults who were harassed as kids are 5.6 times more likely to attempt suicide, 2.6 times more likely to report clinical depression, and 2.5 times as likely to have been diagnosed with an STD. Really nice discussion on this topic. I read whole content and I found interesting information about high schools programs. Informative article.http://www.highschoolsprograms.com/